Selfies are for shallow teenage girls

Selfies have been around for years and have become a staple of online media. For many, they are an expression of self love and confidence. They are a great way of sharing how we are feeling and celebrating the fun things in life. Yet many adults, especially males, will look down on this, seeing it as a narcissistic, self-absorbed act of stupidity from teenage girls. Most recently, this idea was spread through out the media by sorority girls taking fun selfies at a ball game. The announcers of the ball game, grown men, talked about and criticized these girls on live TV for over two minutes because they were taking selfies. They made fun of the girls by saying “Oh, hold on! Take a selfie with a hot dog. Selfie with a churro. Selfie just of a selfie.” and “Do you have to make faces when you take selfies?” Even news articles reporting on the story made fun of these girls as well.

They all believe that

Premise One: The taking of selfies are mostly/only done by teenage girls.

Premise Two: All teenage girls are so obsessed with themselves that they cannot be good people.

Conclusions: Selfies are making young girls self absorbed and ignorant to the world around them.

Looking at these premises, we can see that most of these ideas are thought by many people, mostly of the older generation.

Premise One could be seen as true since much of the media we see on Instagram, Twitter, etc is mostly selfies and mostly by those of the female gender. However, it is untrue because every person who has a phone has at one point taken a selfie or had someone take a picture of them. Especially males trying to show off their ‘sick’ abs with their bathroom in the background.

Premise Two however is an assumption that is not true. It is an attack on women for owning themselves and having confidence to take a selfie. Unfortunatly, that is not how society sees it. It is viewed as women being stuck up and so selfish that they cannot function as smart people. You even hear other girls saying “I’m not like other girls” which means that they believe they are above other people for not liking boy bands or for not taking selfies, etc.

The conclusion is one that many had stated after the commenters at the baseball game slammed these young women for taking selfies. Some comments on social media were “Selfie or mirror doesn’t matter to shallow, narcissistic, attention seeking drama queens.” and “They are probably loving the attention not even realizing they look like a group of monkeys in a zoo with a mirror. Not one IQ over double digits. Shallow.” and “These are the ppl who’ll miss their kids first steps and first words because they’re too wrapped up in their own little selfish world..” In reply to that last comment, maybe they will use their phones to take a video of it and have it for the rest of their lives to remember and be proud of and to embarrass their kids when they get older.

Yet as much as I looked, I could not find a single comment like this on males taking selfies of themselves. Like Uggs, Starbucks, boy bands etc, selfies have become another thing that is attacked simply because young girls like it. Selfies might take us away from the moment but by taking a selfie, we are documenting ourselves and remembering an event that might be as small as what we wore that day. We are showing that we have the confidence to take a picture of ourselves and that we want to show the world. It is not a matter of being ignorant or attention seeking, it is a matter of saying “This is me. This is who I am.” We are able to show our personalities through pictures in a way that we were never able to before.

So is this argument true? From my perspective, no. Is it factually correct? Of course not. There is no proof other than assumptions that selfies are making girls or anyone for that matter, horrible people. Is it valid? No. In conclusion, selfies are not making people self-absorbed and they are not just for girls. They are an expression of confidence and self love that should be celebrated and to that, I post my own selfie!!